Stress, Coping, and Marital Functioning among Parents of Children with Cancer

In individual interviews and questionnaires, 32 married couples provide information regarding their experiences and strategies for coping with their children's cancer. This report examines the association between medical stress, personal coping strategies, coping strategies of spouses, congruence of the couple's coping patterns, and their assessments of marital functioning. Most informants report that family cohesion is strengthened by their experiences wtrn cntianooa cancer and that their spouses are the most important source of social support. However, as the number of the child's hospitalizations increases, perceptions of support from spouse and assessments of marital quality decreases. The wife's perceptions of support from her spouse are related to the husband's involvement in the care of the child; and the husband's perception of support from his spouse is related to the wife's availability in the home as opposed to the hospital. Although personal coping strategies are unrelated to evaluations of marital functioning, some matches between personal and spouse coping are related to perceptions of marital quality and support from spouses.